


I no longer wish to be remembered for my battles and my blood

by Optimistic_Nihilist



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: All Magic Comes With a Price, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eldritch, Eye of Agamatto, Human Sacrifice, Infinity Gems (Marvel), Infinity Stone Soul World (Marvel), Kinda?, Magical Realism, Power Stone (Marvel), Reality Stone (Marvel), Sentient Infinity Stones (Marvel), Soul Stone (Marvel), Taking ‘Tony Stark is the Soul Stone’ to the next level, Technically post-snap, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Work Up For Adoption, Worldbuilding, but also pre-avengers, continuum mechanics are weird yo, is a very big form of currency, technically literally, this is a challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:40:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28124013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Optimistic_Nihilist/pseuds/Optimistic_Nihilist
Summary: The Soul Stone having a pocket dimension is such a dirty cop out. It goes to follow that in some universes, it doesn’t have a pocket dimension. In some universes, it goes to follow that half of all life in the universe did die in the Snap. This has consequences.Aka; Marvel could have basically turned the Avengers into an over glorified version of power rangers and I Am Mad.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	I no longer wish to be remembered for my battles and my blood

It’s hard to start at the beginning when there isn’t really a beginning.

That’s what happens when reality is a sequence of motions; there’s always a reason something is happening, and going ‘to the beginning’ is usually around the time of before the Big Bang. Even then, what happened before  _ this _ version of the universe? What came before matter, energy, reality, and time?

But okay, let’s be cliche. In the beginning of this universe there was nothing, which then imploded. It imploded so hard that, rest assured, as long as you exist in this reality, it’s still exploding in on itself. The claim goes that the force of the explosion created six pure ingots from facets of reality, but that’s horseshit. Ingots made from facets of reality are things like DC Lantern rings, not singularities squashed into physical form, and the explosion is still happening, which would mean there should be many more of these ‘infinity stones’ but shit, go off I guess.

_ My _ theory is that whatever sort of universe came before, at the end of its life cycle, compressed the sacrifice of every living being in its clutches into ingots of pure power. And then used the ingots to generate a new reality, hot and fresh and ready for the endless hell-cycle that is life, and keeping a living and changing reality alive. It makes more sense than ‘Ah yes, this incredibly powerful object is just Black Hole Poo’. 

And, well… I’d know. But more on that later.

See, the important part isn’t these ingots (though they’ll be important later) but what they came from. The abyss, the void, whatever you want to call it. Like an old Lich tired about young people getting all over his lawn, the void decided that murder was a wonderful solution to its problems. Or, well, the planeswalker who had enough experience to be identified as an eldritch god decided that the new, bright universe was encroaching on his delicate sensibilities or some shit. He decided; fuck it. Time to pull out the big guns. 

The big guns in this situation would be a radical new species, made hot n fresh, developed entirely towards their god's favorite passtime; genocide. Of course, their god couldn’t have them be ‘unfaithful’ to him or whatever, so he made them reliant on a host to survive. Oh, and he made them unwilling slaves bound to his will. More on that later.

An entire new species, developed entirely to require symbiosis, exposed to new species. Gee, I wonder how that could ever go wrong.

Well, the story goes that the symbiotes learned free will, or empathy, or something, and rose up in defense of their hosts. Their planet would now be their God’s prison, and hold him forever.

It sounds almost hilariously fairytale-like, but that’s what happened. The personification of the worst parts of eldritch lore was locked away in the planet  _ he _ conquered by the species he created. It’s almost like irony. 

Where did  _ I _ come into all of this? Well, when I was a little girl…

Shut up. You want this from the beginning, right? Then let me  _ speak. _

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a hero. Shut the fuck up, don’t  _ laugh. _ It’s  _ true _ . Well, I wanted to do great things and be admired for it, but that’s what a hero does,  _ right _ ? Anyways, I wanted to be a hero so bad, that I researched the fuck out of it. I read all the storybooks. I emptied out my middle-school library of palatable fiction, and noticed a really common thread.

It didn't matter how strong your powers are. If you're as emotionally mature as a blueberry scone, you're fucked. The heroes that people put up on pedestals, like Superman and Batman, usually almost died before they got up again and won, again usually because they had the emotional maturity of a  _ blueberry scone. _ Or the mental capability.

You want to know the first step to maturity? Critical thinking. And I don't mean thinking in a tough situation, I mean asking questions of yourself. Why do I think like that? How did I reach this conclusion? And then you start to run head-first into your own flaws, how morals are subjective, and all that fun stuff.

I'm not perfect. I'm not some great being, and people who don't know me do  _ not  _ care about my opinion. Let me reiterate; morals are subjective. Life isn't black and white, but a rainbow of gray. I got really into those morally grey heroes as I grew older. Illidan Stormrage, John Constantine, Defiance of the Endless. They won because they were  _ flexible _ . And I'm not a genius, I'm not super strong, but flexible? I'm  _ very  _ flexible.

Oh, don't get me wrong. A lot of shit was going on in the background. I'm not going into all that with anyone but my therapist, but let's just say my relatives suck. And traumatized me. I couldn't look at blood without flinching. I knew I was never going to be a front-line hero. 

But you know what is flexible, follows a lot of narrative causality, creative, and  _ ranged _ ? Magic. I studied an absolute shit-ton of magic.

Just, stop. You want to know how I got  _ here _ ? 

I got Isekai'd.

I want to say I went out with a bang, but that's some other  _ me _ . Actually, I went out with a rattling wheeze. Apparently, airborne and lung-targeting pandemics don't hold back just because you have asthma, go figure.

Apparently, being slaughtered by truck-kun is not required for your local gods to drop kick you out of their property. I was about nine when I realized what I was. Call it what you want, but I was  _ pissed. _

Also, fuck vaping and second hand smoke in general. It didn’t kill me but it certainly was a contributing factor in my death. 

I died, and, surprise surprise, I got reincarnated. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, and that goes for souls, as well. They can only be shifted into new form. Now that I think about it, that applies to matter, energy, reality, time, and minds as well. 

It might surprise those of you who don’t subsist on shitty alternate universe derivatives of magic-oriented fiction, but sacrifice is powerful in and of itself. Old fairytale lovers might remember the powerful sacrifice of a first kiss, or the famous virgin sacrifice trope. Warhammer fans might recognize the power of the large-scale sacrifice of sentients, and people who watch marvel movies can recognize the massive cop-out making the Soul Stone basically a bag of holding. Unsurprisingly when alternate universes are concerned, there is a world where the Soul Stone actually did brutally disintegrate exactly half of the population of every life in that universe, in every form.

Those of you that  _ do _ live off of shitty fanfiction might recognize where I’m going with this. Ingots of incredible power, fueled by the sacrifice of an entire Universe and used to start the cycle over? Half of the population of every life in the universe might be small compared to that, but it’s certainly not small potatoes. It’s  _ certainly  _ powerful enough to create another ingot. That’s where I come in, but, well… Not alone.

There’s another common trope that deals with this; anything with enough power of its own eventually becomes sentient. Unsurprisingly, the Singularity-shit rocks were sentient in their own right, even before the end of that timeline. 

Also unsurprisingly, they were fond of what they had created, fond of those lives they watched over. I say ‘fond’ because much like how humans and mantis shrimp see colors differently, ingots born of the sacrifice of an entire universe “see” emotion differently. It’s more along the lines of ‘obsessive and infinite love, compassion, sympathy, and care, of a mother, father, brother, sister, lover, friend, where simple words like ‘love’ and ‘care’ are as limited in their reach as beings without thumbs are limited when opening jars.’ They also saw souls, minds, power, matter, reality, and time differently, being that they were basically the concept of infinity made physical, and probably the closest beings to an all-mighty god that existed, ever. The Time Stone  _ loved _ Stephen, before Stephen was more than an exploding heat-haze of particles and waves at the beginning of its creation. The Soul Stone  _ empathized  _ with Tony Stark, when the cycle started, when life first came to be from the depths of the universe’s womb and he was a billion billion colonies of cells on planets far away from where he ended. The Power Stone practically  _ worshipped  _ Starlord, when he was little more than a collection of unfurling, budding alternate universes, barely even a chance of his conception, upbringing, life, and  _ soul _ , to even exist along that branch, as it did.

The Space Stone and Loki, the Mind Stone and Jarvis, the Reality Stone and Jane Foster. To say the stones loved their wielders was to make love obsolete, practically meaningless. I… I think the stones were  _ made  _ for them. To love and cherish and empower these broken people, as facets of their Universe’s own love for them. And any good Christian could tell you that the Creator has an infinite amount of love for their creations.

It was also beyond me saying that the Stones hated Thanos. Whatever alternate universe you are in, whatever reason he had for his Universal genocide, they  _ hated  _ him, beyond what the word ‘hate’ really expresses. They hated the Gauntlet, too, for taking their choices away from them. Thanos might have been an inter-galactic conqueror the likes of Hitler would worship on bended knee, but able to hold a facet of the universe with his own two hands he was not. If the stones had their way, they would have reduced him to little more than dust on the wind, like how he reduced an entire half of the universe to barely more than a smear. 

Thanos’s action had consequences. Wiping out half of the life in the universe had  _ consequences. _ Beyond ecosystem collapse, there’s a  _ reason  _ the Universe has life in it. The presence of life is an integral part of the Universe’s functionality. So Thanos didn’t just destroy the entire ecosystem of trillions of trillions of planets, he destroyed the entire Universe’s ecosystem, too. 

Have you watched Avatar the Last Airbender? Do you remember Yue? For those who didn’t; the Infinity Gems were essentially facets of the Universe given physical form. In the beginning, the “soul” of the Universe split itself into six different parts. When the Universe started to die, they had a choice. They could sacrifice themselves and become parts of the Universe again, if disjointed, broken parts due to the separation, and burn the last remnants of the life they loved in order to start again, or they could do something  _ different. _

Sacrifice is powerful. Mass, ritualized sacrifice is even  _ more  _ so. Mass, ritualized,  _ unwilling _ sacrifice? The shades of those who Thanos’s actions  _ disintegrated  _ had  _ opinions _ .

The Soul Stone was used, and so the Soul Stone was the one who, mainly, got the most power from it. Well, I say that, but even being separate slices of the Universe’s pie, the stones were connected. What I mean is that, out of every ingot, it was the Soul Stone which reached outside of their Universal Colony, out of anything identifiable as Marvel, out into the abyss beyond the spaces between… the budding unfolding flowers that are different Universes, separate except for where they intersect, into something I can’t describe in any words I know, and the closest is something similar to the ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion mixed with the Dream in World of Warcraft, mixed with some bastard love child of the Samsara Wheel and some versions of Heaven I’ve heard of. 

I can’t simplify it more than that. Not in any words I have. It’s something beyond words.

The Soul Stone found me there. I was awake, unlike the rest of the sea of souls (ah! An easier comparison; it’s basically the Final Fantasy Lifestream, except Aliens.) and… waiting for something, I think. Waiting for the Soul Stone, maybe. I think it might have been looking for  _ me _ , too.

We communicated mind to mind, soul to soul something that wasn’t telepathy but bore a passing resemblance to it, and the Soul Stone asked. 

The destruction of a Universe if I didn’t accept, the thousands of souls in the balance, the slow death of their  _ home  _ creeping forwards for every moment I Wasn't there, and the Soul Stone  _ asked. _ For that alone, I accepted.

I was remade. It was… well. It was like… blooming. I was unfurling, exposing every dark place in my heart of hearts to the metaphorical sun. The Stones… it was already an incredible balance between the six of them, staying out of any hands they did not have to touch, staying as close to the heart of the Universe as they could, keeping the Universe running in the background as they balanced everything they could between themselves. Even then, I was as close to a perfect fit as it got, and they had to change me.

I was…  _ am, _ something like balance and order, while also being chaos. Rules, Laws, but flexible. I’m… the background hum in the abyss between atoms, between stars. I filled the empty space between the Stones. Sacrifice, and order, and power, and freedom above all things. I’m also a very vibrant shade of Octarine.

It’s kind of ironic, you know. What I became. What fantasy nerd ever expects to become the embodiment of Magic?

Of course, it didn’t stop there. But, well. To be fair, we were the seven facets of the most intricate and powerful parts of the Universe, and we were  _ together. _ Half of the stress wielders of the stones had to be placed under was because of a lack of other stones to pick up the slack. Time is connected to Reality and Space, and Space is connected to Power, which is connected to Mind, which is connected to Soul, which is connected to Reality. I didn’t fit in the rock-paper-scissors format, except maybe as gun. 

We went back. Not  _ too  _ far, but just far enough. We needed to be  _ exact. _ Before Jane Foster was almost destroyed by the Aether. Before Peter Quill almost died holding the Power Stone. Before Jarvis was murdered by Thanos.  _ After _ Thanos mind-fucked Loki, but not after he was defeated. The Battle of New York was practically  _ perfect  _ in that aspect; a nudge here and there, and we changed things.

Stephen Strange becomes the Sorcerer Supreme earlier. He is a part of the Avengers Initiative as a consultant when Loki touches down in Germany. The Guardians of the Galaxy get together sooner, pushed together by ‘fate’ and ‘luck’ as much as the overwhelming love of an integral part of the Universe. Peter Quill is smuggling Terran food to the Ravagers when he’s force-pressed into the Initiative with his team by SHIELD, just in time for the upcoming battle. 

Peter Quill. Loki. Tony Stark. Stephen Strange. Jane Foster is on the helicarrier as a consultant, with her assistant Darcy Lewis, for her knowledge of Asgardian culture as much as her knowledge of wormholes, which is what they suspect Loki will open when he unleashes his army. What else? What else? Jarvis is next to the Mind Stone for the simple fact of possessing the building it’s on, so who else?

Well. I kind of… needed a wielder, too. Someone who was born of sacrifice, who embodied the kind of give and take that Magic integrally was, who felt so strongly it expressed itself on the world around them. Someone who knew what it was like to be controlled against their will, who knew what it felt like to be beaten down and get up, to never stop fighting no matter what. 

Not Wanda or Strange; even if the Time or Mind Stone would allow it, it’s too obvious a connection, and besides that, I could never connect with them enough for us to  _ connect _ . Loki and Tony Stark? Taken, and the same issue there, it’s too obvious. I moved on to others it could possibly be. While Darcy Lewis is practically the play-dough of the multiverse, it wouldn’t be her. Couldn’t be her. We were too obviously separate. I moved on. 

James “Bucky” Barnes. The Winter Soldier. I… don’t really think I’d get a more perfect match if I tried. If I wasn’t completely certain otherwise, I’d think I was forged for him. Who else embodied what I sought to become, what I  _ was?  _ The endless hunt to the center of yourself, the visceral need for knowledge of yourself, the understanding of your mind and soul and everything.

We didn’t even have to do anything; he was loaned out, practically caged in a full bodysuit, for the battle.

We made the choice. We watched as Loki’s scepter’s edge caught on Mjolnir mid-battle, the cage of what might have become Ultron shattered against the wall. Along it, an empty puppet that was and wasn’t the Mind Stone flung outwards, through the wall, right against the main servers of Jarvis the AI. The Avengers tower glows very lightly yellow for a few unsettling seconds. The Mind Stone slipped back into its shell.

Loki screamed as the strands of mind control snapped, clutching his head and falling to his knees, at the coincidentally  _ perfect _ angle for every able-bodied Avenger to see his eyes flicker from pale, sickly blue to his deep, rich natural green. His natural magic flexed as he recovered, and the Tesseract pressed itself to his chest, the stories and songs of thousands of peoples kept pressed against it in a protective shell unfolding back into its pocket, bare against the bare chest of the frost giant, the torn shirt no protection. The Space Stone slid into its shell.

His magic snapped outwards, and in the same instant, both Tony Stark, Stephen Strange, and Peter Quill saw the other glow the color of their respective infinity gem, and the Time, Soul, and Power Stones slipped into their shells.

Jane Foster, who has only just got back from touching the Aether, glows a deep and unsettling red for those same seconds. Only Darcy Lewis sees it.

Loki’s magic, twisting, caught the edges of a red painted not-quite-pentacle, and I followed the line, slipping into the arm he hated and sliding into my shell.

  
  
  
  


In the space between instants, we linked hands, and pulled.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This strangled me at 1 am please for the love of god take it away from me
> 
> Referenced Fanfiction;
> 
> For Cybertron by wolfsrain (the tesseract = the all spark)  
> Literally Any Time-Travel Final Fantasy Seven Fanfiction  
> I can’t remember the name but it’s an Undertale fanfic with continuum mechanics?  
> Blackest Night (the,,, dc self-insert fanfiction)  
> I am Legion (young justice/worm self insert fanfic)
> 
> Inspired by;  
> https://i.imgflip.com/47fa79.jpg
> 
> Also I’ve been listening to that song the whole time and it’s just. Smacking me over the head. 
> 
> Literally do with this what you wish. World build up, or whatever.


End file.
